New Delhi: India won six gold medals at the recently-held International Junior Science Olympiad (IJSO) and secured the top spot in the overall competition.
The 19th edition of the competition was hosted at Bogota in Colombia, from 2 to 12 December. A total of six students, who all earned one gold each, took part in the event that saw the participation of 203 students from 35 countries.
The winners were Arittra Malhotra from Delhi, Rajdeep Mishra from Jamnagar, Avaneesh Bansal from Dehradun, Vasu Vijay from Kota, Devesh Pankaj Bhayiya from Jalgaon and Banibrata Majee from Hyderabad.
Anwesh Mazumdar, national co-ordinator of science olympiads, told ThePrint, “This is a very happy occasion, especially when India has won for the third successive time. We are immensely proud of the students. Special mention to the mentors and tutors of HBCSE whose effort and guidance must be acknowledged.”
While talking about the complexity of the competition, Mazumdar said that this year’s edition was challenging since the theoretical paper was mostly interdisciplinary.
“It always has such elements but the faction was perhaps more this year,” he added.
This is the third consecutive year and fourth overall that the country has put up an “all-gold performance” at the international general science competition for students under the age of 16 years.
Along with gold, Arittra Malhotra, Rajdeep Mishra and Avaneesh Bansal also earned a special bronze medal, as a team, in the experimental competition.
This year’s edition was originally scheduled to be held in war-torn Kyiv but was later shifted to Colombia due to the ongoing conflict in Russia and Ukraine.
The Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (HBCSE) is the nodal centre of the country for the Olympiad programme. The first stage for each subject is organised by the Indian Association of Physics Teachers (IAPT) in collaboration with teacher associations in other subjects.
All the remaining stages are organised by the HBCSE, which selects and trains the Indian team for the international science competition.
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